HTC Corp. (2498) can continue to bring its newest smartphones into the U.S. while a trade agency investigates whether the phones violate an order that the Taiwanese company stop infringing an Apple Inc. (AAPL) patent.

The U.S. International Trade Commission yesterday instituted an investigation into Apple’s claim that HTC continues to infringe a patent in violation of an order issued in December. The agency denied an emergency request to have the HTC phones, including the One X and EVO 4G LTE, detained at the U.S. border. Notice was posted on the agency’s electronic docket.

So maybe in time, reason will prevail. But probably not initiated by Apple, as I’ll show what they’ve been up to after the dismissal, according to Judge Posner, who was not amused. Or maybe he was. I am.

Google Pushes Galaxy Nexus Update To Circumvent Ban

Google has stopped selling Galaxy Nexus device from Google Play Store as Apple deposits around $96 million bond demanded by the court in a controversial decision. The reason of why the sale of the devices has been halted is unknown, as Google has not released any statement. What it does mean is US citizens can no longer buy the device from Google Play Store.

However, Google and Samsung are working on circumventing the ban. Google will be pushing an OTA update which will limit the search functionality to web and remove the ability to search local content, emails, apps etc. Voice search will also meet similar fate. It is ironic that Google is a pioneer in search technologies and just because the company stayed away from patenting every stupid process, and Apple did, it is suffering.

Thanks to the flawed patent system, you can’t innovate without stepping on someone’s patents. Nexus 7, the most awaited device has barely been launched and Nokia claims that it infringes upon its ‘standard essential patents’.

THE GOOGLE NEXUS 7 is already in hot water, as Nokia claims that the tablet infringes some of its patents.

[...]

A Nokia spokesperson told The INQUIRER, “Nokia has more than 40 licensees, mainly for its standards essential patent portfolio, including most of the mobile device manufacturers. Neither Google nor Asus is licensed under our patent portfolio.

“Companies who are not yet licensed under our standard essential patents should simply approach us and sign up for a license.”

However, unlike Apple, it’s doubtful that Nokia will seek injunctions against the Google Nexus 7. Instead, Nokia is more likely to request that Google or Asus obtain the proper licenses.

This is significant. So Nokia is indeed already fighting Android, along with Apple, Microsoft, and Oracle (CPTN members/conspiracy). No wonder Google filed an antitrust complaint; several giants collude against the fastest-growing operating system, which is based on Linux and is Open Source.

But maybe it’s not too late for Nokia to swim ashore, dry off, and go the Android route. As reported by CNET, the Finnish company already has a so-called Plan B in place. And if what former Nokia executive Tomi Ahonen says is true, that Elop “secretly serves as Microsoft’s Trojan horse tasked with devaluing the once great cell phone giant so that Redmond could buy it for peanuts and become a handset maker,” then Nokia must act fast.

Should Microsoft’s clandestine Surface tablet initiative be any indication of the company’s plans for its handset future, Nokia had better be all in or all out.

If they still value the freedom to control their own destiny, they’ll choose the latter.

The lunacy of the EPO with its patent maximalism will likely go unchecked (and uncorrected) if Battistelli gets his way and turns the EPO into another SIPO (Croatian in the human rights sense and Chinese in the quality sense)

Another long installment in a multi-part series about UPC at times of post-truth Battistelli-led EPO, which pays the media to repeat the lies and pretend that the UPC is inevitable so as to compel politicians to welcome it regardless of desirability and practicability

Implementing yet more of his terrible ideas and so-called 'reforms', Battistelli seems to be racing to the bottom of everything (patent quality, staff experience, labour rights, working conditions, access to justice etc.)

"Good for trolls" is a good way to sum up the Unitary Patent, which would give litigators plenty of business (defendants and plaintiffs, plus commissions on high claims of damages) if it ever became a reality

Microsoft's continued fascination with and participation in the effort to undermine Alice so as to make software patents, which the company uses to blackmail GNU/Linux vendors, widely acceptable and applicable again